I want to buy a new car, but I want to know what advertising fees are and about how much they cost?

Greg

Great question, Greg.

Advertising fees aren’t a given when buying a new car, because there are places that will not charge you for them. However, if you want to avoid advertising fees completely, you’ll have to go the internet rout when buying a new car. Places like Cars.com and Yahoo!Autos don’t need to charge advertising fees and can be a really good way to by a car. Many people don’t like to buy their cars over the internet, though, because it is such a big deal and the majority of the population haven’t fallen so far into the internet culture that they are entirely comfortable of making such a big purchase without ever seeing the new car they are buying.

Car dealerships, though, will normally have advertising fees added to the cost of the new car you’re buying, which can often confuse whatever calculations you’re doing about the price. The reason they do this is because manufacturers charge them for the advertising that they do region-wide as well as nationwide, so the dealerships pass the buck to the customer. It’s pretty unfair, since it should be part of the cost of their business and thus not your problem. After all, when you go to the store, you pay for the product, not for the electric bill. All the same, it’s difficult to get the dealership to get rid of these advertising fees.

They tend to cost somewhere from $250 to $1000, which can add a lot to a bill that you might have thought that you were saving on before. On your invoice, it might say ‘sales promotion fund’, or ‘DAA’, or ÁDA’. Ford has it as ‘FDAF/LMDA”. FDAF means Ford Dealer Advertising Fund and LMDA means Lincoln Mercury Dealer Advertising. You should also know that Honda fees are part of the actual price of the car, so if they add an extra charge, you are being tricked.